Tackling entertainment and the two most taboo topics in life - Politics and Religion - from a conservative, centrist and libertarian worldview

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory." Leonard Nimoy

Monday, December 16, 2013

NSA's Day In Court

Is the NSA (National Security Agency) finally getting their day in court and possible proper due diligent justice against their covert violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution? If U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon has anything to say about it then the answer is a resounding YES.

Judge Leon found that the NSA in its collecting of information from all phone calls made to and from the United States to be in violation of the most basic elements of that Fourth Amendment and has suggested in his rendering that the spy agency was in all likelihood acting unconstitutionally.

This is good news for all freedom/liberty loving people throughout the country and world. The judge also cited that the agency failed to adequately prove that their surveillance and data collection from all those illegal phone gathering missions failed to demonstrate any viable information that successfully thwarted or head-off any kind of terrorist activity or attack putting the biggest nail in the coffin of NSA’s defense for its activity.

In Judge Leon’s sixty-eight page court opinion after listening to months of testimony he was quite forthcoming in his convicting tone against the NSA. “I cannot image a more indiscriminate and arbitrary invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying it and analyzing it without judicial approval.” (bold mine)

Thanks in great part to the revelations of NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden and Judge Leon's decision this is simply the first of many more judicial steps to come related to the NSA’s ongoing illegal data collection activity against its own citizens. What lies in the future will be determined by further court action and those of the reacting general populace.